Reproducibility plays a substantial role in quantitative diagnostic findings based on radiological data, in particular image data. Quantitative findings may relate for example to a tumor volume, a tissue density, a calcium score or similar. Comparing the same with corresponding values of a preliminary examination is an everyday task in radiology. Post-processing applications, which are able to derive quantitative information of the aforethe kind from the initially reconstructed image data, generally respond sensitively to changes to relevant image properties, for example to the spatial and/or temporal resolution, the contrasts or similar. Depending on the post-processing application, the data that is to be used as a source for the quantitative evaluation must generally satisfy certain requirements so that the results will be relevant and suitable with regard to reproducibility.
Typically, the use of the right combination of image data and post-processing application for deriving quantitative results is based on knowledge that is described in the documentation, for example in relation to the post-processing application. It is typically left to the user whether data that does not satisfy the requirements with regard to relevance and/or reproducibility is used in a specific post-processing application.